Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-03-15
THE CHINESE DOCTOR.
a CELESTIAL PHYSICIAN CHATS
WITH 4 ST. LOUIS REPORTER.

A CELESTIAL PHYSICIAN CHATs
WITH 4 ST. LOUIS REPORTER.
The Stndy Of Medicine In the Centra
Flowery Kingdom-Chinese Theory o
Msdicine-The Ruling spirit-Circuia
tion of the Hood.
hWong Shang has been practicing medicin,
now for ten years. and has effected many
wonderful cures He Is modest enough to say
thai the Mclean physicians know a good dea
about medicine and the ills that flesh is hei,
To, but not as much the Chinese demigo,k
whose dicta upon medicine have been fol
lowed unvarymSly .Jr the last 5000 Years
and in which now some ~, coo 600 Of pig
tailed people have the most implicit and abid
ing faith. He said that there were many
government and private colleges in China in
which pupils were instructed that a course
IN surgery occupied about four years, and in
medicine six wears. Before entering a medi-
cal college there the pupil had to he well
verSed in the Chinese classics, and be well
educated IN all things pertaining to religion,
as well as history, manners and customs
Only the most learned men are allowed to in
struct in medicine and to explain the mean
ing of passages i'll the books written by sages
III long past centuries.
The examination Of pupils was not CON
Quoted in the same manner as in this coun-
try. The preCeptor takes before his pupils a
man who has an ailment. and they each in
tGrn examine him and determine from his
symptoms what ailS him. Then they write
out their findings and state the disease, its
causes and its cure, which. if it corresponds
to the teachings of the books ani the profes-
sors understanding of the case demonstrates
that the pupils are competent to practice
meilcine without the risk of being beheaded
as frauds AMI cheats The pupil Is then given
his diploma, board about hall an inch
thick, about six inches wide and eighteen
inches long. on which appears in brass hero
giyphicS the statement that the owner is COM
petent TO treat for all outside and inside com
plants. This diploma Is at the same time
the meiico's sign, and a counterfeit thereof is
a counterfeit Of legal form, punishable by
the most severe penalties.
THE CELESTIAL THEORY.
According to the celestial theory of medi-
cine, which partakes much of the nature of
their theology AMI philosophy, man is closely
associated with and influenced hy the ex-
ternal world For instance. there are five
planets, Saturn, Jupiter. Mars, Venus and
Mercury, which ARE supposed to have infiu-
ence over the five viScera. stomach. liver,
heart, lungs and kidneys: that there are five
IN man, earth. wo'd fire, metal and
water, corresponding with five coors, yellow,
green, red, white and black, and those re-
lated again u the five tastes, sweet. sour
bitter, pungent and salt The combination
Of the blood and the breath. they hold. con-
stitute life, and the Withdrawal of one of
these means death. With all this fancisuI
theory there is also woven into the system in
a manner utterly inexplicable the belief in
The androgynous nature of all things, that
everything Ii Part male and parS female
Such thing As experimenting in medicine is
unknown. DISSectlng they hold to be in
human, AMI vkiStN';inn they denounce in I'M
terms With this view Of these
things It Is impossible that the Chinese should
have any surgery beyond perhaps taking off
4 mashed limb or cutting out n bullet They
have a sort OF an5''thetic not 80 strong as
,hloroform. but it is seldom used. for, as
kwong Shang said:
Whats the use: Man hurts. put him to
'leep. No gooi. Hurt all the same
The heart. according To Kwong Shang. is
he center OF thought, the brain being, in the
'hlneSe physiology, hut an inferior part of
he man There i no chemistry required in
Chinese doctor. Pretty near everything
hat comes To- hand i medicinal in its nature,
mi the Chinese pharmacopteia is as exterl-
Ave as their dictionary would be if they hal
NE, for no word Will express more than one
dea.
The father of Chinese medicine was Shun
Nong, and he lived about S,O00 years ago,
'eing a sort of emperor or prince or iemi.
,od. Shun Nony WIS not made like an or
linary mortal. He was TRANSPARENT, and
ouli see right through himself Whenever
nything went wrong with him he Just looked
nto himself TO see what was the matter and
hen took his III dicinr and marked how the
lose got To the spot. He noted down all his
observations in a book, AMI from these obser-
-atiors and his deductions therefrom succeed
ne generations of physicians have never once
eparteCi
CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.
The Chinese believe that the blood Is run
ling in the veins, hut Kwong Shang could
Iot agree with the reporter that the blood
vas pumped from the heart. He believed
hat it was the air, half of the vital princi-
'al, which kept it moving all the time All
uch things rs glands, nerves, duets, etc,
which areSs prominent in the western physi-
logy, are utterly unknown to the Chinaman
hey can know nothing about these things,
ecause of their opposition to the inhuman
ractice of dissection
kwong Shangs theory i'll treating an all
nent is that there are certain channels lead
ng t. certain portions of the body, and that
Medicine placed in the mouth and swallowed
oeS directly through these channels to these
-orii ions. One of his medical books, which
e exhibited to the reporter, contained dia-
ram Of n statue called the Brass Man at Pekin,
howing theSe various channels through which
Medicine passes. The channels run across
ac otber, aud through vital parts, with an
5solute disregard of intersections and con
uency, and the diagram represents plat of
mining district with the different claims
unning into each other in the most b wilder
ls fashion. The only method of determining
patients ailment is ny examination of the
ul~e. There are, so said Shung Nong, and
0 say all his disciples to this day, twelve
curses through which the pulses run and
he office of the pulses is 10 bring news from
he important portions of the body as to their
ondition. Each wrist has three pulses, and
uch pulSe two forms of development The
'hinese physician occasionally looks at the
atient's tongue, but kwoug ShonS is certain
hat no information could be gained as to the
tate of patients lungs by listening at the
reast 1t Is quite a featurs of practice to